In the course of researching my last post, while searching for background on the agricultural historian Hu Daojing, the author of “Explaining the Chinese Peasantry’s Understanding of Soybean Root Nodules,” I found an article including him in a group of Chinese scientists who were important influences on Joseph Needham, the primary author and chief conspirator behind the encyclopedically massive
Andrew, I am embarrassed to say that I am only now catching up to "The Cleaver and the Butterfly," and to your writing and thinking in general! Just this entry alone has filled me with great excitement and curiosity. I look forward to going forward and backwards with you, and to being sent down many fascinating rabbit holes. As someone who reads super-slowly and with minimal retention, I am insanely jealous of your wide-ranging erudition - but I forgive you!!
Apparently Maimonides was (among many other roles) physician to Saladdin which adds a coda to your closing quote about the universality of science.
Andrew, I am embarrassed to say that I am only now catching up to "The Cleaver and the Butterfly," and to your writing and thinking in general! Just this entry alone has filled me with great excitement and curiosity. I look forward to going forward and backwards with you, and to being sent down many fascinating rabbit holes. As someone who reads super-slowly and with minimal retention, I am insanely jealous of your wide-ranging erudition - but I forgive you!!